My issue with this poll is that it is a depicted as a 2 way race. The reality is that Johnson and Stein will take a bit of the vote - primarily from the PIAPS.
I still say the final tally will be that Trump gets about 53% of the vote with the PIAPS maybe 40% and 7% between Johnson and Stein.
That would give Trump 350 or so EV’s I think that PIAPS loses votes to minor parties in places like California and New England.
“My issue with this poll is that it is a depicted as a 2 way race. The reality is that Johnson and Stein will take a bit of the vote - primarily from the PIAPS.”
Right, so in reality that adds, what, at least a point or 2 to Trump’s lead in a 4-way.
They ask three questions:
(1) you will vote in the presidential election?
(2) you will vote for Clinton, Trump, or someone else?
(3) Clinton, Trump or someone else will win?
So the last time I wrote about this, there was 12% remainder. That has tightened up slightly to 10%, and that would appear to have gone to Trump.
Now, three things to note about that 10% remainder:
(1) Their remainder dropping to 10% is a breakthrough number - the previous lowest remainder was 9/18/16 - notably also Trump's largest lead: 47.8-41.1. One senses this pattern of breaking to the challenger is repeating itself, and this time for good.
(2) The remainder is a tough nut to crack because it can account for Gary Johnpot, Jill Schwhine, Evan McNothing, Deez Nuts, et al, in any ratio. It likely also accounts for Undecideds as the default third answer.
(3) If you extrapolate other polls that strongly suggest that the 3rd Partiers are going to aggregate 8-10% nationally (and maybe better in places like NM, UT); that means the election -at least as contained in this group- has just a bare handful of flip-floppers, undecideds, and not voting.